Pete Kaliner is the host of a daily radio talk show on Asheville’s WWNC (570-AM) that airs from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. This column features posts from his daily blog.

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The following was posted Feb. 10: 

ould this count as “misremembering” his (Obama’s) position on gay marriage?

From Time magazine:

Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, “Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.”

“I’m just not very good at bullsh-----g,” Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book.

Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes.

Of course, this was known to anyone who did any research on then-candidate Obama - who was for gay marriage, then against, and then “evolved” back to supporting it.

What’s most damning is how the media allowed him to lie about this for so long.

And what’s hilarious, is how the president claimed he wasn’t good at lying.

The following was posted Feb. 6: 

Closing Gitmo won’t make them like us

 It’s almost like American leadership believes the propaganda from Islamist extremists like ISIS — who say they are engaged in jihad against the West because the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is open.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, laid bare the fantasy behind this argument yesterday (Feb. 5) in a cross examination of Brian McKeon, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy.

Any and all things are used as excuses for waging jihad.

For example, Osama bin Laden told ABC’s John Miller in 1998:

The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted. There is no question that war between the two of us is inevitable. For this reason it is not in the interest of Western governments to expose the interests of their people to all kinds of retaliation for almost nothing. It is hoped that people of those countries will initiate a positive move and force their governments not to act on behalf of other states and other sects. This is what we have to say and we pray to Allah to preserve the nation of Islam and to help them drive their enemies out of their land.

Jihadists will use whatever convenient excuse they need to recruit new followers, rationalize barbarity, and justify their mission. What’s most frightening is that we seem to have a leadership structure in America that not only believes the enemy’s propaganda but helps reinforce it.

The following was posted Feb. 5: 

Washing your hands of government intervention (sort of)

 Senator Thom Tillis says federal rules requiring food service people to wash their hands after using the bathroom is an example of government overreach.

He’d prefer restaurants make their own policy, and then the government would require restaurants to post a sign advising customers of their policy.

 Which doesn’t exactly sound like much of a rollback of government interference in the marketplace.

From a “government edict” perspective, what’s the difference between telling the restaurant to have a policy and telling a restaurant to post their policy.

I know I part company with a lot of libertarians on this matter, but when it comes to public health and spreading of communicable diseases, I believe the government does have greater authority to intervene.

That being said, I don’t understand why Sen. Tillis would adopt THIS story as an example of government overreach. He could pick up a Reader’s Digest for better examples.

Needless to say, Tillis is being mocked by the media and the left for his comments. And, I’d say, rightly so.

The following was posted Jan. 14: 

Dog buses for Buncombe!

Everyone is swooning over Eclipse — a black lab in Seattle that has figured out how to ride the bus alone three or four blocks to go to the park.

The trips began when her owner, Jeff Young, took too long to finish a cigarette while waiting at a bus stop. Trained to heel but apparently not to wait, the dog hopped on the D Line bus, and she’s since made several trips by herself.

“She’s been here the last two years, so she’s been urbanized, totally. She’s a bus-riding, sidewalk-walking dog,” Young told KomoNews.com. “Probably once a week I get a phone call. ‘Hi. I have your dog Eclipse here on 3rd and Bell,’” he said. “I have to tell them, ‘no. She’s fine.’ She knows what she’s doing.”

Hahaha! A dog roaming the city without a leash! How cute.

As the bus’s only canine passenger, Eclipse, who roams the aisles and hops onto seats next to strangers, generates a lot of attention from the human bus riders.

“All the bus drivers know her. She sits here just like a person does,” commuter Tiona Rainwater told the outlet on a downtown trip on Monday. “She makes everybody happy. How could you not love this thing?”

Wait.

Is Eclipse manspreading?

Or, I guess it would be “dogspreading.”

And what about the fares?

Isn’t this dog getting a free ride?

Why does she get to ride for free? Because she’s cute?

But maybe our own Buncombe County Board of Commissioners can take a lesson from Eclipse. In light of the recent animal control ordinance proposal — requiring dog owners to exercise their pooches regularly and give them “social interaction” - maybe they could just set up a dog only bus service that shuttles the canines to various parks.